Every business owner should be building one thing only – an Asset of Value.
This is a business that is built into a tradable asset. An asset is anything of value or a resource that represents economic value – for example a bar of gold. Trading is an ability to buy and sell something – for example, a share on the stock exchange.
As a body grows and develops it also slows down. The years of life and living bear down on it and lying in bed for an extra 5 minutes rather than springing into action the moment the alarm sounds becomes tempting. An extra slice of cheese or a spoonful of ice-cream after dinner and a hard day also feels like a well-deserved reward. Cholesterol builds and if not checked, it’s the death knell that you often regret most when it’s too late.
It’s a terrible analogy to contemplate when building and growing a business, especially if you plan to exit it one day for a capital profit as your just reward for all the risk and sacrifice it took to build.
Scaling is less about technology and more about strategy. Led by strategy, scaling is about business design and discipline. Its measure is found in the yawn between rising turnover and stabilising costs. It is a journey more than a destination. Getting it right reaps great rewards. Getting it wrong yields a life of grind and sweat.
Many pundits are preaching about the 4th industrial revolution. What does it mean, is it relevant to you and how do you embrace it in your business?
Being in business, doing business and building a business tests your sense of self. Business is conflictual. Starting one requires you to take away business from someone else. Looked at differently, it means you have to fight for your piece of the pie and the established incumbents won’t want to share any of it with you. Think school shoes. If there are 6 million kids that buy school shoes every year and you enter into that market with another school shoe, the success of yours is the loss of your competitors.
Time is our most precious resource, but it seems like we never have enough of it. The second entrepreneur Aurik ever gave guidance to, was a bakery business owned by a 54-year old man, who had initiated the company at 27. It was highly successful, but he’d not been able to focus on its strategic growth because all his time was tied up in operations. Fourteen years after we rebuilt the business with him, it now creates more than a Billion Rands’ worth of business.
As the owner of a developing business, you can, and should create time to grow the business, and work on it, instead of in it. We'll examine seven strategies that help you create more time, and spend it wisely.
Listen to the podcast from The Money Show HERE
Wing Chun Kung Fu, a style of martial arts, requires that you have a secure footing on the ground in all its defensive and offensive actions. This footing “anchors” you to the ground. It translates the force of your strike or block from your foot to your knees to your hips and torso to your strike or block. It lends integrity, strength and power to your action be it a kick or a punch.
Building and growing a business is no different. It all begins with positioning and leads all the effort and activity based on that positioning. Weak positioning or poorly articulated positioning will lead to misguided actions, investments, hires and decisions. It fragments and crumbles the businesses platform, leads to a life of chaos and frustrations as a #businessowner and will almost assure you a future where what you have built will never be saleable.
Firstly, this only matters for 5.4% of all #businessowners since 94.6% of all business
Start now to prevent these fateful outcomes by taking control of two things. Understand how
Many enquiries we receive are to do with business owners who want to sell their businesses and emigrate. They are frustrated. Mostly, they have set their sights on New Zealand, Australia, the UK or the US. They feel that the future in SA is bleak, their kids will suffer limited opportunities, there is no economic growth and that government is business unfriendly. So why then have they not done it yet? Mostly it’s because they cannot sell their businesses for a value that will support their emigration and are struggling to find buyers to boot.
If this is you, you're left with two options.
You can blame someone. That feels great for the first 5 minutes, but it doesn’t resolve your frustration or predicament.
Alternatively, you can get your s**t together, act and turn your frustration around. If that sounds good to you, here are the steps to get it done right.
Listen to the podcast HERE
Aurik’s move to bigger and better offices at the end of September shows that growth is possible in a no-growth economy.